Figural scene with donkeys 1920

Tadeusz Makowski made this painting of figures and donkeys with oil paint, perhaps in the 1920s. Look at that dominant ochre, the muted reds, greens, and creams and all those painterly marks that activate the surface. I can imagine Makowski in the studio, perhaps in Paris, building up these layers, wiping away, adding, scraping… I love how the artist used a thin wash in the background, then scratched back into it, leaving these ghosts of figures and architectural space. It reminds me of the textural and emotional depth in Chaim Soutine’s paintings, or even the compressed, dreamlike figuration of Max Beckmann, two artists who were also working in Paris at the time. It’s almost as if the painting has emerged from a primordial soup of brown. Makowski’s mark-making seems tentative but also sure-footed, as if he's drawing his way towards an image, allowing the subject to find its own form in the painting process. And the color palette has such incredible warmth. It’s like watching a painter think and feel at the same time. We are all on the same painterly journey.